The Holy See plays an important role in encouraging the 1300 Catholic universities around the world to appropriate more fully their freely chosen Catholic identity. I use the word "identity" rather than "mission" because this follows the terminology most frequently used in documents from the Holy See. In this article, I discuss how the Holy See has been fostering the Catholicity of higher education in the last forty years and how it has laid the foundation for a more serious assessment of that Catholicity to take place in the years ahead. My sources draw primarily on the Code of Canon Law, the apostolic constitution "Ex corde Ecclesiae," the U.S. bishops' "The Application of 'Ex Corde Ecclesiae' for the United States," and the interventions of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.